- Hi "Vogue."
I'm Michelle Zauner.
I play in a band called "Japanese Breakfast"
and I'm the author of "Crying in H-Mart,"
and this is "Seven Days, Seven Looks."
[upbeat guitar music]
[bright electronic music]
So this is a classic Michelle look.
The shirt is Mukzin, the jumper is Sandy Liang,
the chain is Mara Peralta, and the boots are Prada.
I don't know what happened,
but I hit my 30s and suddenly wanted to start dressing
like I attend boarding school.
Maybe it's my attempt to reclaim my fading youth,
but I really like dressing this way now.
It just feels like fun uniform, it feels sharp,
it's a little edgy.
Sandy Liang is one of my favorite designers in New York.
This is like an everyday look for me.
Shopping, dining with friends.
Classic.
I love accessories that are playful
and just love this little extra feather moment.
Pretty much when you go on tour,
you live in one hoodie or jacket of choice
and this has been my new addition.
I've never owned a fleece before, weirdly.
I played a show at the new Gucci Museum
and Sandy was there and rolled up with her two
friends who were both wearing her signature fleeces
and I just thought they look so cozy
and it was just something that I wanted to live in on tour.
So this is my new favorite fleece.
I think in order to be a classic item in my wardrobe,
it has to have like a little bit of edge and tailoring.
I have to wear like a comfortable fabric.
I'm also very happy that I'm in this new period of my life
where I can wear a thigh high boot and still feel casual.
It feels like I am a grown woman.
[upbeat electronic music]
This is my after party look.
It is full Simone Rocha,
who I love and I feel like was really
emblematic of the whole "Jubilee" album cycle.
Something changed in me once I started "Japanese Breakfast."
I used to feel like I had to present super butch
to be taken seriously as a musician,
and now that I'm older,
I just feel like I can express my full femininity
and still rock a stage.
I love to wear like a big dress at an after party
'cause it's an instant talking piece
and this kind of just makes me feel
like a giant Jigglypuff or like a high-fem Michelin Man.
The first lyrics for the first song on the album,
"Paprika," is lucidity came slowly,
I awoke from dreams of untying a great knot
and unraveled like a braid.
And so I knew for this album cycle,
I was gonna be wearing a lot of long braids
because to me it sort of symbolized releasing tension
and ushering in this new sort of era of joy
and a lot of the Simone Rocha shows have models
with long braids in it.
And I feel like the style goes really well
with her dresses and simultaneously,
they feel almost like soldier dresses,
but also princess dresses in a way.
It's a really interesting tension
between like masculine and feminine
and it's just so unique and creative
and I just love her work so much.
I like to be playful with my accessories
and try to introduce something
with a little edge, a little punkier.
So I put on this Junya choker
and these Reposeux scorpion earrings.
The rings are Mon Cher Moi.
They're super colorful and fun.
On the feet are these giant Simone Rocha platforms.
Gives me the height that I need
to feel powerful at an after party.
[upbeat electronic music]
This is what I would wear to a festival or a show.
It's a Rodarte jumpsuit and Doc Marten boots.
I actually wore this jumpsuit
for our first late night performance
on Jimmy Fallon, and afterwards,
Kate and Laura Mulleavy saw me in the jumpsuit
and invited me to shoot for their
pre-fall campaign in 2021, which was super fun.
I love all of Rodarte's clothes.
I think it's just so elegant and romantic
and they're the kind of clothes that I never imagined
that I would get to wear and has been such a joy to
get to know those two incredible designers
and wear various looks over the years.
I first found out about Rodarte when I went to see one
of my favorite musicians, Joanna Newsom, live in New York
and someone asked her what dress she was wearing
and she kind of coyly said, "Oh, custom Rodarte."
And I just thought that was like
such a sweet moment to be a musician
and get to have a relationship with a designer
and I feel really lucky that I've
gotten to know them over the years as well.
And this is just like such a fun festival look
because I tend to like things that are short-sleeved
because I sweat a lot on like a hot stage.
It's really shiny and it hits the lights really well
and who doesn't love a sequin jumpsuit?
It's also really easy to move around,
which is really important when you're playing live
and taking a guitar on and off and jumping around.
It's breathable and comfortable, and yeah,
it's just the perfect festival concert look.
[upbeat electronic music]
So this is what I would wear
to a reading for my author duties.
This is head-to-toe Thom Browne.
I feel like author Michelle is a little less extra
than "Japanese Breakfast" Michelle.
And so I like to wear like a nice tailored kind of suit.
I also feel like Thom Browne is
the dress code for authors right now.
It just makes you feel really sharp and professional,
it's always very clean, it's so iconic.
I feel like this particular look is great
for the spring/summer.
It makes me feel kind of
like Luke Wilson in "The Royal Tenenbaums."
I just need like a little tennis headband.
So the earrings are Fry Powers.
I wore a lot of Fry Powers to the Grammy's.
They're really fun, colorful little rings.
The only accessory I really wanna talk about
is my book, "Crying in H-Mart."
I really love going on reading tours because as a musician,
I'm so used to having to carry a lot of really heavy gear.
A lot of the times I'll be carrying
like 80 pound amplifiers upstairs
and so it's so nice to just get to go on a tour
where all I have to do is carry this book and read from it.
I wrote this book over the course of like five years
and the thing that really helped me was
having really hard, fast rules.
And I find that it just helps us
like an exercise and forgiveness
of getting really great raw source material.
So, when my editor told me that they were looking
for a book that was 80,000 words long,
I decided that I would write 1,000 words every day
until I hit that word count
and it was a lot of really sloppy,
like off-the-cuff writing,
but I found that it was so helpful to look back on and edit
because it really released a lot of things I wouldn't have
if I didn't have those types of rules.
And so I wrote this book a lot on tour in vans, on planes,
in between soundcheck and showtime.
[upbeat R&B music]
So this is my summer look.
These sunglasses are Gentle Monster.
I love these socks and these Miu Miu shoes
were a real splurge for me this year.
They go with like every outfit and they're such
a perfect summer shoe and I love them.
The set is Mirror Palais.
I feel like this is the perfect outfit to wear
when running errands, out to lunch with friends,
I would even probably wear this to a summer festival
'cause it's really light and breathable and colorful.
And I love yellow.
Yellow was like the major theme color of my album "Jubilee"
and so I tend to wear a lot of yellow when I perform.
[light funk music]
This is my red carpet look
The dress is Valentino and the rings are Hiro Taka.
I would pair this with my very special
Chanel, classic Chanel purse.
This was my mother's purse.
My mom was such a huge fan of fashion
and when she was alive, I was like such a tomboy
and I was really kind of anti-fashion.
Like, in a way, I felt like fashion
I think was almost anti-feminist and I didn't get it
and I appreciate it so much more in my later life
and I feel like my mom would be so proud to see me
on the red carpet in a Valentino gown.
So yeah, this is her coveted classic Chanel purse.
She wanted one of these for a really long time
and it just reminds me of my mom
and all of her elegance and stylishness.
Just like makes me really appreciate
like good craftsmanship.
I always wear this bag when I go to like
a really important meeting or event.
I wore this bag when I got my book deal
and it just gives me power.
It makes me feel like my mom is with me.
I think my mom would be so proud.
If she was alive,
I would so love to get to buy her a designer purse
in this period of my life where I, you know,
have enough money to buy her one.
I feel like as an only daughter,
that's like your dream is to gift your mom
like a designer bag, and unfortunately, I can't do that,
but I like to carry her bag with me
and I think of her often and feel like I got so
many great styling tips from my mom
and she would be so delighted to see me
playing dress-up now.
[bright piano music]
This is my tour look.
I sleep in a bus, in a moving bus,
and cart heavy gear in and out of buildings on tour
and so I have to be very comfortable.
Comfort is key.
This is my favorite shirt.
I bought it in Seoul.
I'm honestly like a big junk food fan,
and particularly Cheetos and Hot Cheetos
are a favorite of mine.
These are Eclipgian pants, plaid pants,
and these are Gucci slides.
I'm lucky that I have pretty small feet
'cause they're children's size
and so my friends bought them
for me for Christmas 'cause they were cheaper.
And then this hat is, you know, signature "J. Brekky."
This is a "Japanese Breakfast" baseball cap.
I became a hat guy over the course of the last few years.
My mom would be very happy to know
that I am blocking the sun from my face.
And if I have a messy hair day,
it's a perfect thing to throw on.
I like having a playfulness in my wardrobe.
I think I really embraced color over the last few years.
I used to kind of only dress
like a stagehand in all black
and wearing like a pop of color,
like a yellow pant with an oversized snack brand tee
expresses who I am.
I'm just a goofy gal waiting to have a good egg.
[upbeat R&B music]
And that's what I wear in a week.
Thanks for watching.
Bye.
[Michelle laughing]
I feel like I'm about to do interpretive dance.
[upbeat electronic music]